Fragments (hope)

'Hope, deceitful as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route. The words of François Duc de La Rochefoucauld and none too hopeful at that, the word hope carries with it many connotations, hope suggests that the state of things are not as we would like them to be, not as they should be, hope can convey a sense of last ditch delusion, the kind that comes with fistfuls of straw, hope can be forlorn, but hope can also be realised, hope can convey belief beyond reasonable means, hope can carry our dreams, our positivity and can cradle our very existence 'once you choose hope anything is possible', said Christopher Reeve as he lay broken in his bed, broken but not beaten, broken but not dead, hope is where dreams are made, hope is aspiration, we, its conjurers would never 'be' without it, any more than we would be without oxygen or water, hope, our fifth element, an invisible constituent, hope, our neighbour, our bed fellow and finally - but not last - hope; us

Notes From Hebron

A Near Miss (11.01.11)


It is January 11th, I have been in Hebron for two days now working with an international movement which will here remain unnamed, it is around 7;30am, Juan - my room mate - receives a call from a contact and wakes me from my aching slumber, he has heard that an Israeli demolition squad has been seen assembling outside a small village in the desert south of Hebron, we gather ourselves as quickly as we can and leave at once with the intention of reaching the target before the bulldozers.


 We are told to head for a town called Yatta and await further directions, we hurriedly oblige but before we make our destination our taxi hits a large boulder on an unlaid stretch of road, its engine is critically holed but even as the hot oil spews from its sump we successfully flag down a passing local who takes us enthusiastically to our first destination. From there we acquire further direction and another hard negotiated taxi which whisks us to the edge of nowhere and then a little further, finally leaving the road at its end and hopping the rocky desert toward our goal. 


Our journey has taken us well over an hour to this point and our nerves are on edge, it seems that we have invested a lot in getting this far and this may be our first opportunity to engage in actively hampering the efforts of the IDF and could easily lead to our arrest and possible deportation. As we crest the final hill before the village though we are forced off the track by the yellowing girth of a bulldozer as it passes, it is followed by several more and then a monumental snaking cavalcade of military hardware which seems to take minutes to pass. The traffic is all heading out of town and I am - at once - relieved and disappointed not to be opposing them. 


Momentarily I assume that they have been rebuffed by the locals but as the dust settles on their departure I see a settlement littered with flattened buildings and I can almost hear the air escaping my soul as my spirit deflates, this is a low. As we eventually exit the cab and enter the village we are swamped in a sense of utter loss, defeat and anger, the UN are there, they could do nothing, the EAPPI are there, they could do nothing, ISM are there, even they could do nothing and all anyone can do now is record the aftermath and intrude upon this tragedy by gently throwing questions at the the bedouin inhabitants. This is a low indeed, this is what it feels like to lose, to be squashed, to understand how utterly powerless we all are in the face of such unassailed might, as individuals and collectively. At the same time though I am pricked by the awareness that we came so close, we were so nearly there first and this stirs the hope within me that we can make it next time and even if we cannot prevent such an abominable act of mean spiritedness, we can at least witness it on behalf of the world and share the truth through images and words. (see video above)


As a result of the occupation the majority of Palestinians must seek planning permission from Israel before building any new structure, even in their own country and on their own land, in almost every case (94%) this is refused meaning that existing towns can neither expand or develop, this is one way in which the zionists seek to ethnically suffocate the West Bank of its inhabitants and seize land for its own settlements. Many Palestinians are thus forced to build without seeking permission, resulting in hundreds of demolitions each year.


(Below, children stand beside the hurriedly evacuated contents of their bulldozed classroom)

Here we are (09.01.11)


Here we are, January 9th, bound to our collective histories and shot before our future's eyes, here we are, in the limbo of life's last lick. Through its frosted glass door pours the dimming light of day, unobstructed by high-rise or tree, on the road outside only mortar, shutters, echoes and the steel barrier - signal yellow in hue - under which, and through, a carpet of dusted tarmac but never a soul or carriage, never a taxi or bag. In here only the orange face of a gas fed camping heater can claim to breath, as surely we do not and the damp exhalations we perceive are given their mist only in acknowledgement of our proximity to demise. The walls here sweat cold and wear the paled documentary of our environ's ever diminishing value. 1990; sunshine and colour punctuated with smiling people and fresh wares, 2007; an abandoned place with skies like today and the dark remnants of moisture which cling to the fissures in the redundant pavement and street. January 9th 2011 and the space in which we wait, London and I, we wait for the gas to go, for the failing light to follow, we wait with the screen saver and the coat stand, topped as it is in a holed straw trilby, as estranged from its season as we are from our own realities which - like that hat's first summer - we feel, will never be seen again. Here we are, welcome to Hebron.

Of All the Ways

Above: details of a wall mural painted with a group of students from the UNRWA school at New Askar refugee camp, one of several art projects I had the good fortune to complete during my time with Project HOPE

This particular entry finds me struck with a particularly rigid affliction, one that often corrugates me at around this time of the annum, of what it is comprised it is not difficult to say but the results find one laden with a certain unwillingness to adapt to the intransigent nature of things. The crux of the mater seems to be that, having last week completed my final Project HOPE class, I must now recalibrate my sights so as to maintain a purposeful presence here in the West Bank.


Alas though, I find myself with ideological fires to fight, the first of which has long since taken off my eyebrows and was begun  - in malice - by my tinder dry finances, forcing upon me the cumbersome acquisition of a paying job at a local English academy. Bravo! I hear you cry, but the remuneration between the abstract currency of NGO work and the infinitely more crass motivation provided by the shekel is nothing short of a chasm, all the greater to bridge given that I am attempting to traverse it in the same community that - previously - thanked me for my unending charitable kindness. All of which raises the question, what on earth am I staying for? 


It would be a deception of epic proportions not to at least make mention of the fact that I may - in part - be hoping that my remainder here will serve to aid me in my ongoing quest to circumvent the dull inconveniences of 'real life'. Ultimately though, staying here can really only be validated by the notion that I am somehow helping, now, there are all sorts of debates raging as to whether I was ever doing so in the first place, given the wide range of views on the significance - and indeed need - for NGO's, I hope you will forgive me for working on the self aggrandising assumption here that I, and Project HOPE, was and continue respectively in some way benefiting others.


 Happily, there are still several options open to me on this front as my new servitude to the shekel leaves room enough in the middle of my working week to fill with the kind of activities which constitute 'helping'. The problem here comes from the credibility attached to the organisations offering such work. Members of the main organisation (which shall remain unnamed lest my mention of it make me an enemy of the state), themselves admit they lack purpose these days, and are struggling for direction since the end of the last intifada. One of the main tyrannies currently afflicting the West Bank population is the illegal land grabs and evictions being carried out by settlers supported by the IDF. usually they are unannounced and by the time the aforementioned and unnamed organisation knows about them it is too late for them to ply their trade. All of which leaves the weekly demonstrations in Bil'in (against the wall) and Jerusalem (against settlement building and ongoing mass evictions) as the main staple for the freelance 'helper', and whilst I support and encourage such direct action, I do wonder whether such a diet will leave me feeling Jaded and ineffectual.


As things currently stand, it is likely that I will remain in situ for at least the next four weeks (just in time for my next unbidden crisis of general purpose and direction), until then I must rest in the comfort and knowledge that , with three months of mixed fortunes under my belt, surely there can little I am not prepared for ?

Nablus 101 (episode 4, volume 2)

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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5nDDCcAfpg

Nablus 101 (episode 4, volume 1)

If this content is not working then please follow the link:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41vIY_kITTE

fragments

Qalqiliya, a small Palestinian town on the border with Israel and almost entirely encircled by the wall. Myself and Some local and international friends pay a visit, I am struck - as always - by the ignorant enormity of this barrier. I had wondered whether the way that it mockingly absorbs the words that are scrawled across its lower third make it impossible to carry out such actions with conviction, whether those who ply their aerosol can hands stand defiant or defeated in its shadow, now I have done it myself I feel closer to the answer....   

Hope?

(top to bottom: mural in Jenin camp, The Freedom Theatre, Project HOPE volunteers relaxing at the theatre)

It is Saturday, late November and winter is finally- and somewhat belatedly - putting out its feelers, they creep around the crumpled cuffs of my shirt and tease the exposed skin on the nape of my neck with late afternoon chills. I finally decide that I can leave the task of updating my blog for not a moment longer lest the fact fester in my mind for even a day more. The thing I find about the way that time hurtles us through particular passages in our lives, is that such assaults rob one of those moments of stillness and reflection required to make sense of the context in which one is living, and in this way I sit now, kicking only the top soil of my understanding instead of striking bedrock.


My mind turns repeatedly to the opening sequence of the film Blue Velvet and the way that the camera skims the idillic surface of the American dream before pitching headlong into the grassy shadows of a well kept lawn and the sinister realm of the dark insects that inhabit it. In a similar way, the situation here seems peaceful on a superficial level but the psychological and physical abuses are still suffered daily, the undercurrent of abnormality runs strong through the streets of this town. Rarely do I see or feel them directly, I hear a lot though, I heard one story just yesterday in fact, I heard that the settlers had found a well on Palestinian land nearby, a well belonging to the local people. They took it. They took it by force, with guns and the support of the army, now it is an Israeli well, this is normality. I hear stories like this almost daily and almost daily the anger writhes within me and for a while, takes my breath as if to show me how weak and ineffectual I am, this I usually conclude for myself in the course of 'normality'. An example of which sounds something like this: The week before last was the religious holiday of eid, me and the internationals went to Egypt for a few days, our palestinian friends did not, they are not allowed to go anywhere without the permission of the Israelis. We returned on the Thursday, F16's flew low over the city that day as they had all week, a few days later they pounded the town with sonic booms presumably incase their captive audience were in any doubt of just how oppressed they really are. A trifle, you may think and a trifle, it is true, relative to the atrocities of years gone by but still far from my pampered understanding of 'civilised behaviour'.


One fact that becomes increasingly evident is that the enemy within (The Palestinian Authority), is joining our ignorant interlopers on a level footing as the largest threat to the human rights of those resident in this corner of the globe, a less prudent man would hereby elaborate, alas though the oppression suffered by those native to these parts extends by proxy to anyone who may care for their wellbeing. On this, a visitor may admit, without propaganda, to feeling disempowered beyond words and like never before, and impotent in a way he never considered possible.


In a rather more positive story, the excellent weekly meetings that Project HOPE host turned up another amazing documentary last weekend when the group were shown the film Arna's Children (see following link for the full movie) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6EXrA3UFwM , the film documents the way that the Stone Theatre in Jenin's refugee camp gave hope to a group of children therein, who had suffered immeasurably at the hands of the Israeli's during the first intifada. The youthful vitality and potential of the group in question is soon replaced with small arms and home made bombs however and as the film makers return to the camp five years later they find that all but a handful of the original group have been killed, most defending the camp against the occupation during the second intifada. The film ends with the death of one of the final surviving members in a missile strike, and the theatre - it seems - is buried along with any hope for good beneath the rubble of the ruined camp. With this in mind myself and a small group of local and international volunteers from Nablus decided to head over to Jenin to see if this was in fact the case. Happily we found there the latest incarnation of the theatre, renamed The Freedom Theatre, the new space is thriving like never before and providing a creative focus and emotional therapy for those who may otherwise (and quite understandably) feel limited to violence as their only form of resistance. The theatre is demonstrative of the notion of cultural resistance as a alternative to the former and stands as a beacon, shining a light upon the injustices suffered by those who populate it. It appears that hope remains here but I only ever find it in the shadows, the longer I spend here the more accepting I feel of my life's newly imposed limitations and the more I see hope for what it seems to be, all that is left.